


Mirror, Reflection

by sasha_b



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Possibilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror, Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this song prompt on First Class Kink on Live Journal.
> 
>  _You don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear  
>  It floods the sky and blurs the darkness like a chandelier  
> All the light that you possess is skewed by lakes and seas  
> The shattered surface, so imperfect, is all that you believe_
> 
>  _I will bring a mirror, so silver, so exact  
>  So precise and so pristine, a perfect pane of glass  
> I will set the mirror up to face the blackened sky  
> You will see your beauty every moment that you rise_
> 
> You Are The Moon ~ The Hush Sound

There are furrows in Erik’s mind; some shallow, some blood filled and deep. He is aware of them, can feel them at the back of his mind. Shattered bits of thought and memories scatter around the tears (rents, grooves, ruts, gulleys) like ripples in a lake – he knows how to focus, singularly, with obsession born of pain that no man can match.

Charles Xavier is everything Erik is not. From the moment Erik felt Charles in his brain, the water cold enough to freeze him solid despite his wetsuit, something about the furrows seemed different. Quieter, less easy to access when he needs them.

He struggles with the satellite, strains and sweats and clenches his jaw and yet he can feel the metal calling to him, singing, electric in his brain and buzzing in his gut. Charles is disappointed – Erik can sense the other man’s mood as easily as Charles himself can access his own powers. Terrifying, really, but since when does Erik care what others think of him?

He cares; too much about this one.

 _What did you just do to me?_

Charles wipes a tear from his cheek, his eyes full and his face wan. Erik stumbles over other words he wants to speak, the furrows dividing his want and the I trust you he has begun to believe in, and he lets Charles explain and touch him on the back and convince him in that voice, that soft, oh so trusting voice, to _try again, hmm?_

He does –

His duality, the brokenness that he has become a master at hiding, his strength and the division that makes him who he is all flutter together, gently, and the furrows in his mind are whole and unbloodied as he lifts his hand, twisting easily. Charles is behind him and to the right, but he feels the other man step up to him, hand once again touching his shoulder. Charles touches him, and Erik can see what he can do, what he can be, reflected in the other man’s mind.

He is electric and the metal bends to his will and he smiles as he weeps, a great bright thing that lights the whole of Westchester. Charles spreads his hand out over Erik’s shoulder and lets out a joyful whoop that echoes the laugh that pours from Erik.

They turn to one another, once divided, now perfect parts of the other. One the reflection, one the mirror. Who is who doesn’t matter, although Erik knows the true power is in the one who wields the mirror, showing him what he can be. Charles is smiling, touching his shoulder, letting his hand slide down Erik’s arm.

Erik opens his mouth to speak – and Moira sticks her head out of the window, and Charles is running to the mansion proper, Erik trailing him, the weight of the gun he carries heavy in his pocket, the division angry and distorted inside again, as though it’s furious that Erik found a better way than the rage.

*

Their chess match that night – the last one, in all probability – is heated and Erik wins, but only by making a move so daring that he’s surprised at the outcome himself. Charles stands, threading his hands through his hair even as Erik stays seated, legs crossed, physicality calm and collected. _Something_ he’s learned from Charles, at least. The lamps are too soft, too warm, and Erik rubs at his left arm, slowly, able to see the numbers there without closing his eyes.

“You knew who I was when you met me, Charles. You said it yourself; don’t act as though this is new to you.”

 _What do you know about me?_

 _Everything._

Oh, so dangerous.

Charles turns back to him, and picks up his glass of brandy, draining it. “You can change your life, Erik. You don’t have to do this. You can be the better man – you are the better man.” Erik smiles as Charles repeats his own declaration of earlier. “We are the better men, together.” A reflection, pieced in glass, one man only whole with the other.

That word. Together – what does it even mean?

The monster has no one else, save himself and the creator that fought for his life. Erik is awash in _blud_ as suddenly as he can draw breath, the furrows in his mind alive and twisting as rapidly as they’ve been quiet. The turtleneck he wears, the fine chinos and rich looking shoes, all a costume, a division, a mockery of what he’s there to do, what he needs to do in order to seal the rift in his mind – and if he were honest with himself – his heart. Although that is a lie – the biggest he’s ever told himself.

He stands and faces Charles, toe to toe. “I am only what he made of me, Charles. I have to see this through – you have no idea what I’ve done to get here…” he draws his mouth closed as he realizes how ridiculous it is for him to even make that statement. He laughs, bitter and torn and _done._ “I am imperfect in all things save this one. Can’t you see that, with all your gifts? Can’t you at least see that?” His voice is low and rumbling and should bring a ripple of fear to any normal person.

Charles shakes his head, his blue eyes dark with the intensity of his passion. “You are anything but imperfect, my friend. It breaks my heart – ” he swallows roughly. “You and I, separate,” he continues, quiet, sure, hands apart about a foot. “Strong in our way, two magnets, unbending, powerful.” He smacks his hands together, fingers wound tightly, and Erik sighs – the partition in his mind struggling, fighting, but he leans forward, drawn to Charles, to the words that spill from the other man’s red lips, truth in them, no matter what Erik’s past has lead him to know as his _truth_.

“United, stronger, heavier, more power than any one of us could ever imagine alone.”

Erik wets his lips; Charles’ eyelid is twitching with his exertions, sweat beading on his brow – and his magnanimous, gorgeous brain, his plans and kindness and all the training and the work and the caring and the simplicity of his goals are suddenly all Erik can see or feel.

 _maybe he’s right_

Too dangerous, too scary to think that way.

Erik reaches out and fists a handful of Charles’ cardigan, his teeth clacking against Charles’ as he kisses him, the perfection of the mirror that is Charles Xavier to Erik Lehnsherr’s damaged mind too much to deny.

Erik thinks that if he continues to look into Charles’ mirror, he can see something besides the furrows and rifts and drifts of snow that line his own brain and maybe something besides the broken and piled excess of nothing that Shaw left of Erik’s youth.

He kisses Charles to forget this idea, to distract himself, to engage in something purely pleasurable in order to let go of the goal for one moment – to see if he can live with that.

He knows he _can’t_ , but Charles makes a sound unlike anything Erik’s ever heard before, a combination of his name and _god yes_ and _god, Erik_ and he’s drowning, the storm that rages in him reflected in the calm of Charles and he finds they are in perfect symmetry.

*

Early the next morning Erik is outside, the sun barely risen, his blue high necked shirt and leather jacket armor against whatever will be coming. He’s covered except for his hands and head; it feels safer that way. The scars he carries are unseen by anyone.

Save one – and that one is behind him and then beside him, his shoulder brushing Erik’s. He can feel Charles mentally pushing at the divide that is once more present, but Erik erects a wall he’s had a bit of practice on and doesn’t allow the telepath to shove his way inside. Not today.

He wonders at the oddity of it feeling so strange keeping Charles out, after –

“Did you want some breakfast?”

The mundanity of the statement makes him laugh; Charles bites his lip as Erik watches him, the blue of Charles’ eyes showing Erik his own face. He takes note of his face in Charles’ irises, wavering, bent, unclear. “Erik,” Charles starts, the voice calming, the waves of _acceptance, trust, love_ coming off him –

 _love_

Erik’s head aches, the pain undulating through him as though lightning were the source of power in his skull. His back is sore (a few bruises he’s not sorry he has now, though) and his arms empty and he cannot for the life of him fathom where the source of his tranquility went after the moon set – he’d seen it set from the window of Charles’ room, bathrobe tied loosely at his waist, Charles’ scent in his nostrils, his divided mind sewn tremulously together.

 _Charles had come for him then, touching the pulse in Erik’s throat, hand combing slowly through the back of his hair, and Erik had gone willingly to the other man’s bed, the sense of complete and perfect too addicting to ignore. One a reflection of the other; solid._

“We can have that. _I_ want that.”

“We can’t, Charles.”

“Why?”

Angry chittering in Erik’s broken brain; he flutters his eyelashes, once, twice, a third time. Charles stands next to him, the warmth of his body an anathema –

“We need to go, Charles.”

“We need to settle this.”

Erik turns to him, his eyes blazing, his hand flickering without thought, bending the lamppost behind them in half with a screech that’s sure to wake the entire mansion. “We need to go.” Charles does not react to the tearing of the lamp. Instead, he touches Erik on the face, his hand rising too quickly for Erik to stop it. “The better men. Together.”

Abomination – division – monster – and yet there’s Charles, a mirror of his own pain and suffering, turned from black and shadow to shimmering, dawn filtered light.

*

“I’m going in!”

Erik expects Charles to argue, to yell or present some sort of alternate plan, but when he leans back far enough to be able to make eye contact with Erik, he knows. Charles will let him do this, because Charles thinks something different might happen now.

“Beast, Havok. Back him up. Erik, I can guide you through once you’re in but I need you to shut down whatever it is that’s blocking me. And then we just hope to God it’s not too late for me to stop him.”

“Got it.”

“Good luck!”

Erik bolts from the plane, the two boys following him, Charles mind pulsing at Erik’s with every bit of strength Erik knows the other man to have, joined to Erik by simple thought and will. Shining, reflective, stronger united, as one. He thinks wryly for a moment as he and Beast and Havok stand and survey the sub – waiting for the two mutants that protect Shaw to react – Charles feels, thinks, that he’s convinced Erik to do what he feels is right. Erik is used to that wave of surety from the other man now, and sometimes, especially in this moment, finds it laughable that Charles, at the height of his pride, would believe he’s convinced Erik Lehnsherr to defer from his life’s work.

 _I want this. I want you._

Erik shakes his head and begins to run; the two boy mutants engage the teleporter even as Erik rips the wall from the sub, crushing the tornado mutant. He slams inside, panting, turning in all directions, fear and anxiety and the dichotomy of who he is pounding through his veins. This is the end -

“Erik…the middle of the vessel. That’s the point where my mind can’t penetrate; we have to assume that’s where Shaw is.” Charles directs him to a panel and a large switch that he lowers to what appears to be its off setting.

“That’s the nuclear reactor. Disable it.” He does.

Charles’ inner voice – the one that Erik’s grown used to hearing; it connects things, makes them smooth, no matter the turmoil or the choppiness of Erik’s waves – is suddenly devoid of emotion, and Erik knows why.

“Erik, you’re there. You’ve reached the void.”

But the sub is empty, and Erik’s ire grows along with the throbbing at his left temple. All the plans, his whole _life_ for this, and now

“Charles, he’s not here, Shaw’s not here- he’s left the sub!”

“What? He’s got to be there! There’s nowhere else he can be – keep looking.”

“And I’m telling you he’s not. There’s no one here, Goddammit!” Ah, the rage, his friend and lover, and he allows it to rise, filling, bringing blood and vengeance with the roar of a lion.

Freeze – separate – turn around, _kleiner_ Erik.

“Erik. What a pleasant surprise.”

And yet.

Charles is screaming his name, yelling for him to _stop, don’t do this, Erik, turn around, you are the better man, you don’t need to end this way_

But Erik knows better.

He closes his eyes once as the door that blocks Charles out begins to slide shut; the mirror that the other man is to Erik, peace and possibility and maybes, (if only for one brilliant, furrow-less moment) falls from Erik’s grasp, shattering in a billion tiny pieces around him, even as the sound of Charles’ panicked screaming grows louder.

 _Erik?? Erik, Erik!!_

Erik Lehnsherr has furrows in his mind. Furrows where solid matter should be, furrows that cannot be joined no matter the calm or the love he’s presented with.

Somehow that’s the worst thing in the world, now.

He wishes that he could gesture with his hands and the bits of mirror, the bits of Charles that he’s left behind could zip together with the ease of his moving the satellite. But he’s alone, no matter what promises Charles made him.

 _There’s more to you than pain and anger._

The rents that have been gouged in his brain since he was a child tear open and he is no longer _the better man._ He doesn’t know if he ever was.

The door to the reactor room slides shut, leaving Erik with Shaw.

~


End file.
